Smart home technology is designed to make our lives easier, taking chores off our list and giving us more time to enjoy other pursuits. With the rapid onset of AI technology, autonomous tech is smarter than ever. Gadgets like Beatbot’s line of robot pool cleaners take over one of life’s necessary but time-consuming tasks, freeing you up to take full advantage of the summer sun. At the top of Beatbot’s robot pool cleaner line is the Aquasense 2 Ultra, a cordless model designed for effortless operation that does away with the safety concerns of tangled, damaged or trip-hazard cords. It builds in several industry-first features, including automotive-grade coating technology for enhanced durability, and comes with a strong three-year full-replacement warranty for additional peace of mind. Beatbot makes pool maintenance easy Cordless design HybridSense Pool Mapping with AI Camera 5-in-1 Cleaning: Water surface, waterline, floors, walls, water clarification Advanced AI Cruise Debris Detection Superior water surface cleaning with side brushes and app navigational control Smart water surface parking and one-touch app retrieval Skin-safe and eco-friendly ClearWater Natural Clarification The Aquasense 2 Ultra is a super-sleek robot that will not only clean the water surface in your pool, but also scrub the waterline, the floor, and walls, and purify the water to make it clearer. Get this robot and wave goodbye to manually cleaning your pool. As soon as you flip it into the water, it puts its 27 sensors and proprietary HybridSense AI technology to use, mapping out the pool and deciding on the best cleaning path. An AI camera also helps the robot detect debris on the pool floor for more thorough cleaning. The dual-side brushes and 5,500GPH suction power make cleaning any pool surfaces a breeze, and the robot will easily scale concrete, tile, vinyl, or fiberglass walls. Beatbot’s Aquasense 2 Ultra won’t just clean the pool, but it will also filtrate the water, removing dirt, oil, and residue, thus helping you keep the water clean. Buy Beatbot Aquasense 2 Ultra at Amazon Beatbot Simple operation An appealing feature of this robot pool cleaner is just how long it lasts. Unlike other similar models, it has a 13,400mAh battery that can keep going up to 10 hours when cleaning the water surface, or five hours when cleaning the pool floor or walls. The Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra is easily controlled using a smartphone app. After completing its cleaning task, you’ll be able to see the pool map on your phone. You can also view cleaning history and real-time stat, check the planned cleaning path, and choose between multiple available cleaning modes. You can even use the app to take full manual control and navigate the robot around your pool when it’s on the water surface and Wi-Fi connected. An added bonus of the mobile app is its ability to report on water and environmental temperatures, making it easy to decide whether it’s too cold for a dip without getting wet. Once the cleaning job is complete, the robot automatically parks itself at the waterline so you can pick it up and set it to recharge. The wireless charging dock has a sleek design that you will be proud to have on show at your next pool party. New features The latest update from Beatbot adds three new features to the AquaSense 2 Ultra: AI Quick Mode: AquaSense 2 Ultra takes advantage of AI vision technology to enable focused and immediate cleaning of debris from the pool floor in just half the time of the standard Floor mode–perfect for when you need to clean up the pool in a hurry. Night Cleaning Mode: Available in Floor, Standard, Pro and AI Quick modes, a pair of lights and an AI camera enable enhanced visibility for improved night-time cleaning, meaning you can wake up to a sparkling clean pool. ECO Mode: Also available for AquaSense 2, Pro and 2 Pro, ECO Mode is perfect for continued maintenance while you’re away from home. Schedule programmed pool floor cleaning every 48 hours, and it’ll keep going up to 10 days (based on a 30m² pool), so you can dive right in to a cleaner pool when you return. Time-limited offers Beatbot’s range of AquaSense pool cleaners are on sale for Father’s Day, and between June 9 and 22 you can save up to $820 on these helpful robots. Usually priced at $3,550, the AquaSense 2 Ultra is now available for $2,840, while the AquaSense 2 Pro, with a retail price of $2,899, can be purchased for $2,079. The simpler AquaSense 2 is usually $1,599, but you can save $500 and get it for $1,099. Save up to $820 on Beatbot pool cleaners in the Father`s Day sale! View Deals at Amazon Read...

It’s always a strange moment saying goodbye to a technology you’ve used forever, and I now find myself waving farewell to another one: the humble spinning-platter hard drive. Sure, I’ve been using SSDs for close to 15 years for my operating system and gaming drives, and SSDs are obviously superior for performance and durability. But for a very long time, cost and capacity have been against them and firmly in favor of traditional hard drives. I think it’s time to call it—I don’t need a hard drive in my main PC anymore, and neither do you. Here’s why you should make the switch. Why I stayed stuck on my HDD I first started building and working on PCs in the early ’00s, and back then hard drives were a must-have component. They were the only way to store data in a consumer PC—outside of crazy RAM drives—and I usually rocked a pair of them: a fast drive for the operating system and games, and another cheaper one for longer-term storage. Cut to a few years later when I started testing SSDs and the future was suddenly clear: HDDs for gaming were done. While I still have some friends I’ve yet to convince of this, the writing has been on the wall for a long, long, long time. SSDs outperform HDDs by a long shot. Replacing an internal drive with an SSD is one of the best upgrades you can make.Western Digital But even as lucky as I was—I’d been getting sent SSDs for testing—I still never used an SSD as my large backup storage drive option. I still only trusted hard drives with my precious family photos and expansive collections of (legally) ripped movies and TV shows. Because even though SSDs were faster, HDDs were more reliable for years-long storage. And that’s how it stayed for over a decade. I kept adding newer, faster SSDs to the point where I now have a hodge-podge collection of NVMe and SATA drives cluttering up my rig, with my Steam library stretched across 10+ TBs of super-fast SSD storage. All the while, in the background, I had my lone hard drive keeping charge of my important data. It too was replaced over time, but always remained an HDD. But in mid-2025, it’s time to hang up its hat. With a new 4TB SSD, I’ve ended the longest reign of any PC component type I’ve ever used. The cost of a large-capacity SSD SSDs are still more expensive than HDDs. Not as dramatically as they once were, but more expensive nonetheless. A 1TB hard drive will cost you around $35 while a 1TB NVMe SSD about $50. A 2TB HDD is around $65 while a 2TB NVMe SSD starts around $90. The 4TB Seagate BarraCuda HDD that I replaced is about $85 new today while you can get something like the 4TB Crucial P3 Plus NVMe SSD for $220 or the 4TB Samsung 990 EVO Plus NVMe SSD for $250. So, yeah, on a GB-for-GB level, the hard drive is far more cost effective. And when you get up into the really big capacities (think 20+ TBs), SSDs don’t even have comparable alternatives at this time. The Biwin Black Opal NV7400 released in 2024 and packs a lot of performance in capacities up to 4TB. Who’s ready for the future?Jon Martindale / Foundry But let’s be real here. How much did you spend on your last graphics card upgrade? How much on your gaming PC as a whole? Is the speed difference between an SSD and HDD really worth $150 or so? Because believe me, while you don’t need cutting-edge performance to store your family photos and video collections, you’ll definitely notice the day-to-day benefit of a (much) faster drive. SSDs aren’t just good at launching games quickly, but also at reading files without lag—no matter what file it is or how many you’re trying to read at once. Don’t sniff at the performance difference When you’re using a computer all day every day, every second matters. It all adds up, especially when it takes forever to launch apps, load files, and transfer data from drive to drive. Who has time to waste? I have tens of thousands of photos from over the years, and my Plex media library chugs I scroll through photos from years ago. It only takes a few seconds here and there, but when it happens every time I load a new page or every time a video buffers, it’s a real pain. Here’s what my Plex media library looks like with an HDD—it takes a while for the thumbnails to load. Not the case with an SSD.Jon Martindale / Foundry After switching over to an SSD, those waits are largely non-existent. It may hitch now and again on spectacularly large files, but the overall experience is smoother and feels more responsive. With an SSD, my library is working at my speed, not the other way around. The same goes for adding new files to the drive, too. Where once backing up my phone with a few thousand images took many minutes, now it’s more like a few seconds. That’s true for backing up in general, too. Where previously I was stuck to the glacial write speed of my hard drive, now I can move entire catalogs of old work documents and other important data over to a new drive near instantaneously. HDDs still last longer… probably Outside of the ever-shrinking cost disparity between hard drives and SSDs, there is one area where hard drives still hold an advantage. I’m talking longevity. Hard drives have been clearly shown to operate for years, or even decades, without data degradation. Backblaze’s annual drive stats paint a strong picture of most HDD models, that they can operate at high capacity for long periods of time without failing. SSDs don’t have the same pedigree, but they can still last a long time before needing to be replaced. The latest models have Terabytes Written (TBW) ratings in the hundreds or even thousands of terabytes, so they can be written to over and over again without fear of diminished drive performance or instability when reading/writing data. In reality, most of us aren’t going to use up that many write cycles. Andrey Matveev / Unsplash And it’s not like HDDs are immune from wear and tear. While conventional wisdom suggests that a hard drive can run for 5 to 10 years with light-to-moderate use, hard drive manufacturers typically only offer warranties of 2 to 3 years. Professional hard drives get about five years—and SSDs get about the same. For most consumers, 3 to 5 years is plenty. There’s one large caveat here, though. When it comes to archiving data, or storing data in a drive that’s powered off for a long time, then hard drives absolutely take the cake. Since SSDs store data electronically rather than magnetically, the data itself can degrade if the SSD isn’t powered on for a long time. Hard drives don’t suffer that issue. If you’re saving data offline in a drawer somewhere, then use a hard drive. Otherwise, you’ll benefit from using an SSD. I’m keeping my hard drive, by the way Main operating system drives? Replace them with SSDs. Secondary storage drives that see day-to-day activity? Make ’em SSDs. Media streaming drives for things like Plex? That’s right. SSDs! They just make the most sense in nearly all scenarios. But that doesn’t mean I’m tossing the HDD I replaced. It doesn’t have to go in the bin just because it’s ageing or slow. A hard drive is the better choice when you need extreme capacities or long-term offline storage, and the latter is what I’m going to use it for. The HDD is handy for a 3-2-1 backup strategy: 3 copies of your data on 2 different media, with 1 of those copies stored remotely off-site. The hard drive forms part of my long-term storage design. So you can live on a little longer, my old hard drive. You’ll be buried even further away from relevance and I hope to never call on you—but if I do, I know you’ll be there to save my butt. Further reading: Why everyone should have a NAS drive Read...

TL;DR: A lifetime subscription to Babbel gives you access to 14 languages with on-demand lessons—grab it for $129.99 with code LEARN40 with this limited-time offer from StackSocial. The pressure of traditional language classes can be overwhelming for those who dislike speaking English in public. Babbel offers the solution for isolationists with its lifetime subscription, allowing you to learn 14 languages on your terms—no need to show off until you’re ready. Steven Haines Babbel’s lessons are designed for real-life conversations, teaching phrases you’ll actually use. It won’t throw you into the deep end but will challenge your brain to learn. The platform’s speech-recognition technology helps you improve your pronunciation privately to perfect your skills without the anxiety of live practice. Plus, personalized lessons adapt to your progress. Another perk: you can download lessons for offline use, so when you travel, you’ll be prepared to practice before you even get there. No recurring fees—this lesson plan fits your life without worrying about subscriptions. Whether you’re tackling Spanish, German, or Italian, Babbel’s 14 language options are available whenever you’re ready to dive in. Don’t miss out—this exclusive StackSocial deal is available for $129.99 with code LEARN40, but only through June 30 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Babbel Language Learning: Lifetime Subscription (All Languages)See Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

For more than a decade, footy fans have watched MND gradually compromise Neale Daniher’s ability to communicate. But for this year’s Big Freeze match, the footy legend has his own voice back. Here’s how the remarkable technology works and how he tells it what he wants to say. Read...

Science and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle says police should `embrace change` as talks over funding continue. Read...

I’ve always loved the idea of VR gaming. It’s a fascinating technology, and there are some experiences that just can’t be had without a VR headset. But VR gaming as an industry is struggling in 2025. Gamers and game developers are largely reliant on Meta’s Quest platform, and Meta is neglecting VR gaming while in pursuit of the metaverse. The only plausible challenger? Valve, who breathed life into the handheld PC gaming space with the Steam Deck. Valve is the only company with enough influence and resources to do the same thing—and if Valve’s long-rumored Deckard headset lives up to its potential, us VR gamers might finally get what we’ve been hoping for so long. The rise (and slide) of VR gaming The Oculus Rift launched over a decade ago in 2012 as the first big consumer VR headset. Oculus was then acquired by Facebook in 2014. Facebook was willing to pour money into VR headsets at the time, which led to the Oculus Quest line of headsets becoming the most popular line of gaming VR headsets—and that still holds today. Meta You can play games right on the headset, or you can plug it into your PC and use it in conjunction with your PC’s graphics card, or even stream VR games wirelessly from your PC to the headset. Meta’s Quest headsets beat the competition, no contest. Microsoft’s line of Windows Mixed Reality headsets are a historical footnote and the HoloLens is dead. Meanwhile, I still roll my eyes at the Apple Vision Pro, which costs $3,499 and can’t even play Beat Saber? No thanks! I’ll stick with the Meta Quest 3S that starts at $299. Keep your overpriced hunk of junk, Apple. Yet while Meta’s headsets are the undisputed leader in market share, Meta is faltering as the de facto steward of VR gaming. The future of VR headsets looks shaky—and it doesn’t help that the hype has shifted from the metaverse to AI. Yep, now it’s not about having a 3D Mark Zuckerberg avatar floating in a void; instead, the future will involve an AI-generated Mark Zuckerberg floating in that same void. Meta is squandering the VR gaming space From what I can tell, Zuckerberg truly was personally excited about virtual reality and “the metaverse” as it was later dubbed. That’s one reason why Facebook (and now Meta) willingly sunk so much money into it. He honestly thought it would be “the next big thing.” But the metaverse hasn’t quite taken off like he hoped, with his thunder stolen by the likes of AI. Is it any wonder why Meta making cuts to its Reality Labs division? Part of the issue is that Meta has mainly pursued “metaverse-style” experiences like Horizon Worlds rather than delivering a robust platform that game developers trust enough to invest in. Many VR game developers are facing declining sales on Meta’s store and struggling to sell enough games to survive. In fact, game developers as a whole are losing faith in VR as a gaming market. 2K Games As Owlchemy Labs CEO Andrew Eiche told UploadVR: “I think [Meta] made a video game console and they want a general computing device.” Other developers, who wished to remain anonymous, made statements like “Meta is not interested in being a gaming platform anymore. They just want to be a metaverse, and they just happen to have a legacy store.” and “It feels a bit like Meta has seen the [Meta Store] data and is keeping it as a legacy option rather than the future of the platform.” All of this points to how Meta is mishandling the Meta Store, where it increasingly prioritizes its “Horizon Worlds” experiences—many of which feel like clones of actual existing games—on its search results pages, pushing down other games and software created by other developers. The future of Meta looks free-to-play and not necessarily about games. With increased competition in VR headsets, from the Apple Vision Pro to Google’s Android XR project and Samsung’s Project Moohan, Meta will probably lean even further away from games. Nobody seems to think there’s any money in VR gaming… and it’s playing out like a self-fulfilling prophecy. VR gaming is dying because it’s being neglected. The VR version of a Steam Deck? The Valve Index VR headset came out in 2019 with a price tag of $999, and it had to be tethered to a PC. It was really good for the time, and with it Valve proved that they had what it takes to deliver high-quality VR gaming hardware. Later, with Half-Life: Alyx, Valve proved that they could deliver high-quality VR games, too. (The Lab is another fun Valve VR experience that was impressive back in 2016 when it launched.) Valve But Valve hasn’t made any moves in VR since then. Instead, we got the Steam Deck, which transformed the handheld gaming space. The Steam Deck isn’t just awesome hardware—it runs the Linux-based SteamOS operating system with excellent compatibility with Windows games. That’s a massive accomplishment that isn’t talked about enough. The Steam Deck was also impressive because Valve delivered something people actually wanted. Microsoft never really cared about the handheld gaming experience on Windows PCs until Valve started eating into its market share with the Steam Deck. Valve lit a fire under Microsoft’s seat, and the latter now appears to be getting a little more serious (even if Windows-based handhelds are still pretty lackluster). That’s the same kind of innovative fire that we need in the VR gaming space. With Meta dropping the ball, could Valve take it and run? How Valve could save VR gaming with the rumored Deckard headset Valve’s Project Deckard has been the stuff of online rumors for a long time, but those rumors have ramped up recently. Earlier this year, a leaker claimed that Project Deckard may be on the way by end of 2025. I don’t want to get lost in too much speculation, but here’s the picture that’s emerging: a high-end VR headset made for gaming, one that can be completely standalone just like a Meta Quest headset so you can play without plugging into a PC. It’s extremely compelling. And the reason it’s compelling? Not only did Valve prove themselves with the Index, and not only did Valve make enormous waves with the Steam Deck, but Valve cares about gaming in a way that Facebook—the company that once flooded social feeds with FarmVille—doesn’t. These are the patent drawings for Valve’s Project Deckard, filed in December 2021 and published with patent number US-20220187609-A1.Joel Lee / Foundry Valve also has Steam, which is a huge asset. In a world where VR game developers say they’re facing sliding game sales on the Meta Store, and in a world where so many interesting VR games just aren’t getting made because the future looks grim, Valve could revitalize it all if they made a concerted push for VR games on Steam—complete with a Steam Deck-style “you don’t need any other hardware, just buy this one device” experience. You know, the thing that made Quest headsets so good. Hardware aside, this could unleash a new wave of interesting VR games and revive the industry, or at least keep it going as a sustainable platform for geeks like myself who find it pretty cool. Just like handheld gaming PCs before the Steam Deck, gaming VR headsets are being largely ignored by companies. Valve has a massive opportunity here. We don’t really know, though. Valve is almost certainly experimenting with a variety of products in house, and the company hasn’t actually announced anything official about Project Deckard. But I hope they do! The VR gaming industry needs something like this, and Valve is the most credible company that could deliver results. I like VR gaming, not the metaverse Many people still aren’t interested in virtual reality. I get it. I don’t want to wear a VR headset for extended periods of time, and I don’t want to live in the metaverse. I’ll happily play AAA games like Doom: The Dark Ages on my gaming PC, and I certainly don’t want to work while wearing a VR headset, even though Windows 11 now supports that. But I do think VR gaming is cool. There’s nothing quite like Beat Saber. It takes me back to the Dance Dance Revolution craze from my teenage years! There’s something special about VR as a gaming technology even if the technology isn’t quite there yet. So I hope Valve picks up the ball and runs with it—someone definitely needs to. Read...

Investment in SaaS technology is driving growth and agility in Australia and New Zealand`s manufacturing sector, with 89% of firms adopting cloud solutions. Read...

Every smart home deserves a smart pool cleaner, and with Dreame’s Z1 Pro you can strike off your list the most tiresome job of all. Summer should be a time for having fun and chilling out, but pool cleaning is the persistent headache that never goes away. Skip a week in the maintenance schedule, and you’ll pay for it later. Since proper pool maintenance is no five-minute task, enlisting some help is a sensible move. Dreame’s Z1 Pro tackles this job for you, offering hands-free pool maintenance and freeing you from long hours spent picking up fallen leaves, scrubbing grime from the pool walls and floor, and other dirty jobs no-one has time for. Who wants to do that when they could be lounging in the sun, drinking iced something or other, and reading a book? What to expect from Dreame Z1 Pro Powerful suction With 8,000GPH suction power the Z1 Pro is able to remove dirt and debris from the bottom of the pool, pick up anything that’s fallen into the water and is now floating on the surface, and even scrub clean the walls to leave a dazzling finish. Once complete, it self-parks at the edge of the water, ready for you to collect at your leisure. Cordless design This pool cleaner has a cordless design, so there are no wires to tangle, trip you up or send you hunting for extension cables. A single charge powers the Dreame Z1 Pro for up to 180 minutes, during which time it can clean over 2,160 square feet. How many hours would it take you to clean a pool that size? Dreame’s Z1 Pro supports pools of all shapes and sizes. Its AI-powered PoolSense technology divides the pool into areas, decides which type of cleaning job each area requires, and simply gets to it. It will perform a flawless cleaning job in the least possible amount of time. Remote operation While most robot pool cleaners must be programmed before they go into the water, this one comes with a remote controller. This quirky remote uses LiFi technology, letting you connect you to the underwater robot to assign tasks, steer the cleaner, or end a job because the guests are here and the pool party is about to start. This remote supports both freshwater and saltwater pools. Remote control is also possible using the Dreamehome mobile app. This straightforward app gives you all the info you need, from the map the robot made of your pool to the multiple cleaning modes available, to job logs that include the area cleaned, the time taken to complete, pool profile and route taken. Reclaim your summer now Dreame’s Z1 Pro has a full price of $1,499, but you can currently find it discounted to $1,099 at Dreame–and now take a further 15% off with the exclusive discount code PROMO15. The money off is always welcome, but even at full price you’ll welcome the savings on your time and effort. Take a further 15% off Dreame Z1 Pro Use Promo Code PROMO15 Read...

ChatGPT is rapidly changing the world. The process is already happening, and it’s only going to accelerate as the technology improves, as more people gain access to it, and as more learn how to use it. What’s shocking is just how many tasks ChatGPT is already capable of managing for you. While the naysayers may still look down their noses at the potential of AI assistants, I’ve been using it to handle all kinds of menial tasks for me. Here are my favorite examples. Write your emails for you Dave Parrack / Foundry We’ve all been faced with the tricky task of writing an email—whether personal or professional—but not knowing quite how to word it. ChatGPT can do the heavy lifting for you, penning the (hopefully) perfect email based on whatever information you feed it. Let’s assume the email you need to write is of a professional nature, and wording it poorly could negatively affect your career. By directing ChatGPT to write the email with a particular structure, content, and tone of voice, you can give yourself a huge head start. A winning tip for this is to never accept ChatGPT’s first attempt. Always read through it and look for areas of improvement, then request tweaks to ensure you get the best possible email. You can (and should) also rewrite the email in your own voice. Learn more about how ChatGPT coached my colleague to write better emails. Generate itineraries and schedules Dave Parrack / Foundry If you’re going on a trip but you’re the type of person who hates planning trips, then you should utilize ChatGPT’s ability to generate trip itineraries. The results can be customized to the nth degree depending on how much detail and instruction you’re willing to provide. As someone who likes to get away at least once a year but also wants to make the most of every trip, leaning on ChatGPT for an itinerary is essential for me. I’ll provide the location and the kinds of things I want to see and do, then let it handle the rest. Instead of spending days researching everything myself, ChatGPT does 80 percent of it for me. As with all of these tasks, you don’t need to accept ChatGPT’s first effort. Use different prompts to force the AI chatbot to shape the itinerary closer to what you want. You’d be surprised at how many cool ideas you’ll encounter this way—simply nix the ones you don’t like. Break down difficult concepts Dave Parrack / Foundry One of the best tasks to assign to ChatGPT is the explanation of difficult concepts. Ask ChatGPT to explain any concept you can think of and it will deliver more often than not. You can tailor the level of explanation you need, and even have it include visual elements. Let’s say, for example, that a higher-up at work regularly lectures everyone about the importance of networking. But maybe they never go into detail about what they mean, just constantly pushing the why without explaining the what. Well, just ask ChatGPT to explain networking! Okay, most of us know what “networking” is and the concept isn’t very hard to grasp. But you can do this with anything. Ask ChatGPT to explain augmented reality, multi-threaded processing, blockchain, large language models, what have you. It will provide you with a clear and simple breakdown, maybe even with analogies and images. Analyze and make tough decisions Dave Parrack / Foundry We all face tough decisions every so often. The next time you find yourself wrestling with a particularly tough one—and you just can’t decide one way or the other—try asking ChatGPT for guidance and advice. It may sound strange to trust any kind of decision to artificial intelligence, let alone an important one that has you stumped, but doing so actually makes a lot of sense. While human judgment can be clouded by emotions, AI can set that aside and prioritize logic. It should go without saying: you don’t have to accept ChatGPT’s answers. Use the AI to weigh the pros and cons, to help you understand what’s most important to you, and to suggest a direction. Who knows? If you find yourself not liking the answer given, that in itself might clarify what you actually want—and the right answer for you. This is the kind of stuff ChatGPT can do to improve your life. Plan complex projects and strategies Dave Parrack / Foundry Most jobs come with some level of project planning and management. Even I, as a freelance writer, need to plan tasks to get projects completed on time. And that’s where ChatGPT can prove invaluable, breaking projects up into smaller, more manageable parts. ChatGPT needs to know the nature of the project, the end goal, any constraints you may have, and what you have done so far. With that information, it can then break the project up with a step-by-step plan, and break it down further into phases (if required). If ChatGPT doesn’t initially split your project up in a way that suits you, try again. Change up the prompts and make the AI chatbot tune in to exactly what you’re looking for. It takes a bit of back and forth, but it can shorten your planning time from hours to mere minutes. Compile research notes Dave Parrack / Foundry If you need to research a given topic of interest, ChatGPT can save you the hassle of compiling that research. For example, ahead of a trip to Croatia, I wanted to know more about the Croatian War of Independence, so I asked ChatGPT to provide me with a brief summary of the conflict with bullet points to help me understand how it happened. After absorbing all that information, I asked ChatGPT to add a timeline of the major events, further helping me to understand how the conflict played out. ChatGPT then offered to provide me with battle maps and/or summaries, plus profiles of the main players. You can go even deeper with ChatGPT’s Deep Research feature, which is now available to free users, up to 5 Deep Research tasks per month. With Deep Research, ChatGPT conducts multi-step research to generate comprehensive reports (with citations!) based on large amounts of information across the internet. A Deep Research task can take up to 30 minutes to complete, but it’ll save you hours or even days. Summarize articles, meetings, and more Dave Parrack / Foundry There are only so many hours in the day, yet so many new articles published on the web day in and day out. When you come across extra-long reads, it can be helpful to run them through ChatGPT for a quick summary. Then, if the summary is lacking in any way, you can go back and plow through the article proper. As an example, I ran one of my own PCWorld articles (where I compared Bluesky and Threads as alternatives to X) through ChatGPT, which provided a brief summary of my points and broke down the best X alternative based on my reasons given. Interestingly, it also pulled elements from other articles. (Hmph.) If you don’t want that, you can tell ChatGPT to limit its summary to the contents of the link. This is a great trick to use for other long-form, text-heavy content that you just don’t have the time to crunch through. Think transcripts for interviews, lectures, videos, and Zoom meetings. The only caveat is to never share private details with ChatGPT, like company-specific data that’s protected by NDAs and the like. Create Q&A flashcards for learning Dave Parrack / Foundry Flashcards can be extremely useful for drilling a lot of information into your brain, such as when studying for an exam, onboarding in a new role, prepping for an interview, etc. And with ChatGPT, you no longer have to painstakingly create those flashcards yourself. All you have to do is tell the AI the details of what you’re studying. You can specify the format (such as Q&A or multiple choice), as well as various other elements. You can also choose to keep things broad or target specific sub-topics or concepts you want to focus on. You can even upload your own notes for ChatGPT to reference. You can also use Google’s NotebookLM app in a similar way. Provide interview practice Dave Parrack / Foundry Whether you’re a first-time jobseeker or have plenty of experience under your belt, it’s always a good idea to practice for your interviews when making career moves. Years ago, you might’ve had to ask a friend or family member to act as your mock interviewer. These days, ChatGPT can do it for you—and do it more effectively. Inform ChatGPT of the job title, industry, and level of position you’re interviewing for, what kind of interview it’ll be (e.g., screener, technical assessment, group/panel, one-on-one with CEO), and anything else you want it to take into consideration. ChatGPT will then conduct a mock interview with you, providing feedback along the way. When I tried this out myself, I was shocked by how capable ChatGPT can be at pretending to be a human in this context. And the feedback it provides for each answer you give is invaluable for knocking off your rough edges and improving your chances of success when you’re interviewed by a real hiring manager. Further reading: Non-gimmicky AI apps I actually use every day Read...

Data is omnipresent. It’s stored on different devices — traditionally on a desktop PC, but now perhaps even more importantly on a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet. Even though data and system backups are often automated via the cloud, especially on mobile devices, you often feel more comfortable if you still have a tangible medium in your hand on which to store your digital treasures. What’s more, sometimes you just want to move data from A to B quickly and easily. Or simply be available offline. Or move it directly to a storage medium to free up internal hard drive space. Further reading: The best external drives There is portable storage for all purposes. But there is no one solution for all applications. This guide summarizes the most important advantages and disadvantages of external SSDs, HDDs, and USB sticks to make it easier for you to decide on the best portable drive. External SATA SSD: All-round storage for everyday use Internal SSDs with a SATA connection are now outdated and less common. However, they remain justifiably popular as external drives. The reason: With a bandwidth of 6 Gbit/s, SATA delivers a theoretical transfer speed of up to 560 MB/s read and 530 MB/s write. These values exceed the transfer rates of the widely used external interface USB 3.2 Gen1 (formerly USB 3.0), which is up to 500 MB/s, at least in theory. This makes external drives in 2.5-inch format still a competitive storage solution for everyday PC use. A SATA SSD that is no longer required can easily be reused as an external drive in an external housing. Installation is uncomplicated. In addition to USB-A, Type-C is also gaining ground as a PC connection. IDG Advantages: In principle, the SATA drives in the external housings also have the advantages of all flash storage devices. They can read and write very quickly, especially with many small files. And this pays off in everyday use. Low latency and short access times to small blocks of data randomly distributed on the drive are what count here. That’s why extensive programs can be started quickly from an external 2.5-inch hard drive or large photo collections can be opened without delay. In addition to the speed, external SATA drives also benefit from the silent operation of the flash memory — as is generally the case with flash, only stationary parts are used. In contrast to HDDs, SSDs are insensitive to shocks. Depending on the housing design, external SSDs can even withstand drops from a height of several feet without damage. And there is another advantage of SATA SSDs that is worth mentioning: If you have removed the drive from the computer for a capacity upgrade, you can continue to use it as an external SSD without any problems. All you need is an external housing in which to install the used drive. Inexpensive models in 2.5-inch format are available from around $10 — for example from Delock, Ugreen or Verbatim. Further reading: Best external SSDs for gaming At this price, the enclosures usually come with a USB 3.0 interface. If the enclosure is to be equipped with a USB Type-C port, prices start at around $20 — which is also not too high a hurdle. Disadvantages: The SATA connection is on the decline for SSDs. At the same time, the interface is no longer being developed further. Higher transfer speeds are therefore not to be expected with SATA. As a result, the choice of models is decreasing. An external SSD in 2.5-inch size, such as the Lexar SL200 model, costs around $90 with a capacity of 512GB and is therefore a manageable investment. At higher capacities you will not usually find details of the flash type used. For this capacity, assume QLC (Quadruple Level Cell) flash modules, which store four bits per cell. They are intended for high capacities when maximum write speed is not important. An example of an external 8TB SSD can be found in the Samsung Portable SSD T5 Evo. At $525, it’s not exactly a bargain. The price is put into perspective, because at around 7 cents per GB, it achieves a very fair result. At 8TB, the Samsung Portable SSD T5 offers the maximum capacity of mobile SSDs with internal SATA technology. It comes into question when a lot of storage space is the top priority.IDG Most mobile 2.5-inch SSDs have a capacity of 1 or 2TB. TLC (Triple Level Cell) flash memory can also be used here. It stores three bits per cell. These mobile storage devices are priced at around $70 for 1TB and $130 for 2TB. This results in prices per GB of between 6.5 and 7 cents. External NVMe SSD: Lots of mobility and high speed Ultra-mobile SSDs now make up the majority of external SSDs. The housings contain an NVMe drive that was originally intended for the M.2 slot. These SSDs have a card shape — mostly 22 millimeters wide and 80 millimeters long. This is why you will also find them labelled 2280 if you are looking for an internal drive. Further reading: Is USB or Thunderbolt better for portable SSDs? The key differences, explained Advantages: Thanks to their compactness, many external NVMe SSDs are only slightly larger than a USB stick. This means they are very light and can fit into any bag. This is ideal if you need an external SSD for travelling. External NVMe SSDs use USB-C as a connector throughout. It is twist-proof and therefore cannot be plugged into the port the wrong way round. The majority of models use USB 3.2 Gen2 as the standard with a transfer speed of 10Gbit per second. Sequentially, data rates of around 1,000MB/s can be achieved for both reading and writing. This makes them approximately twice as fast as external SATA SSDs. pcworld`s favorite 10GBps external SSD Crucial X9 Pro Read our review Best Prices Today: $89.63 at Amazon The increase in speed is noticeable with every copying process. Regardless of whether you are writing and reading many small or very large files, the work is done quickly. This is why external NVMe SSDs are recommended both for quick file copies in between and for extensive weekly backups. As a rule, you can use external NVMe SSDs across all devices. This is because most of them are formatted in the exFAT file system. It can be used with Windows and Mac OS as well as with the Android and iOS mobile phone operating systems. Some external NVMe SSDs are even explicitly designed for use with mobile devices. They are designed to relieve the internal memory or make extensive media content available at any time. For example, you can take high-resolution photos and videos with your mobile phone camera and store them directly on the external data storage device. In this way, they can also be easily transferred to PCs and laptops. One example is the Lexar ES4 Portable SSD model, where the external SSD can be attached to the back of the smartphone using a magnet. This means it doesn’t get in the way during use. As with the external SSDs with SATA technology, the maximum possible capacity is 8TB. You no longer have to pay a high surcharge for the smaller and faster mobile drive. An 8TB model such as the Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD costs around $600. As with the 2.5-inch variants, the price per GB is 7 cents. External NVMe SSDs are available with different capacities. They usually start at 500GB, for which an average of $80 is currently due. This results in a comparatively high 16 cents per GB. Most models are available with 1 and 2TB capacity. In the cheapest case, you pay around $70 (1TB) or $110 (2TB) or between 7 and 6 cents. The latter applies to the 2TB version, which is the best value for money. NVMe SSDs with cutting-edge USB interfaces such as the Adata SE920 with USB4 must ensure good heat dissipation if data transfers are not to be throttled due to the heat. This comes at the expense of compactness.IDG You usually have to pay a little more for extras such as rubber coating, drop protection, or protection against moisture. Additional programs such as those for assigning a password or for SSD maintenance, on the other hand, are usually included free of charge. They are either included directly on the drive or can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s website. Disadvantages: NVMe SSDs are often so small that they can easily get lost. Small cut-outs on the housings are designed to prevent this, as they can be attached to something else — such as a bag. As only Type-C is provided as a connection, you need an adapter or adapter cable to connect to USB-A interfaces. The accessories are usually, but not always, included in the box. The speed advantage is lost when connected to older USB interfaces. Data transfer drops to the level of the connected type A interface. With USB 3.0 (USB 3.2 Gen1) to around 500MB/s, with USB 2.0 even to a maximum of only 50MB/s. Some external NVMe SSDs, such as the Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD, are available in many different capacities. Additional data protection is provided by rubber coating and insulation against moisture. IDG Speaking of USB: External NVMe SSDs are available in many USB standards. These now include USB 3.2 Gen2x2 with 20Gbit/s, USB4 with 40Gbit/s, USB4.2 with 80Gbit/s, and Thunderbolt as TB 3 and TB 4 with 40Gbit/s and TB 5 with 80Gbit/s. The variety often leads to confusion, as you need to know about the standardizations to avoid making the wrong purchase. The faster the data transfer, the more heat is generated. This is why the fast NVMe SSDs can get very hot. In the worst case, this harbors the risk of data loss. Enclosures with ventilation slots and even built-in mini fans are designed to counteract this. However, they come at the expense of compactness and are reflected in higher prices. A cutting-edge USB4 model — for example from the Adata SE920 series — costs a good 10 cents per GB for the 1TB version. PCWorld`s favorite usb4 external ssd Adata SE920 USB4 SSD Read our review Best Prices Today: $159.99 at Amazon USB stick: Perfect for short-term storage activities The most mobile form of external storage is the USB stick. It can even be the size of a thumbnail and still offer space for lots of data. USB sticks differ in terms of capacity and interfaces. Basically, it must be clear: The flash components used in USB sticks are not of the highest quality. Advantages: USB sticks are at the top in terms of mobility. They are designed from the outset to transport data stored on them from one computer to another. The emphasis is on transport, not on long-term storage of data. There are model variants of USB sticks that have two different USB interfaces — in addition to USB-A, there is also the twist-proof type C connector. With dual sticks, you save on extra adapter solutions.IDG With sticks, you can find models that are equipped with both USB A and C interfaces. This saves you adapter solutions if you often need to exchange data between older and newer computers. You can find these USB sticks under terms such as “dual drive” or “dual stick,” such as the Verbatim Dual Quick Stick models, which are available in capacities from 128GB to 1TB. Disadvantages: The cheaper the USB flash drives on offer, the more skepticism is required. Even with a stick with a type C connection, the data transfer speed can drop to an outdated USB 2.0 level. In many cases, there is no precise information on the packaging. If you need a fast stick, look out for information such as USB 3.2 Gen2 or data transfer speeds of up to 1,000MB/s. Cheap sticks from brand manufacturers cost around 7 cents per GB. If an offer is significantly lower, caution is advised. It may be a counterfeit. In this case, the specified capacity is usually incorrect. In addition, the quality of the flash modules or the controller chip may be poor. It’s likely the modules will soon fail and the stick will quickly become unusable. The size of a USB stick can have an impact on data security. Very small USB sticks usually have poorer heat dissipation than larger versions. In addition, mini housings are often less robust. They are less resistant to frequent plugging and unplugging than larger sticks. External HDDs: Still used for backups and archiving Even though the competition from SSDs is putting pressure on HDDs, magnetic hard drives remain useful as mass storage devices in external enclosures and NAS systems. Both 2.5 and 3.5 inch HDD designs can be installed inside. SATA III is always used as the internal connection. External HDDs in 3.5-inch format are capacity wonders with 24TB to even 26TB. At the same time, the price per GB is unbeatably favorable. However, these storage devices are not designed to be taken away, but for stationary use.IDG Advantages: External HDDs are capacity monsters. Currently, the maximum storage capacity of mobile 3.5-inch HDDs is 28TB. Such storage monsters are primarily intended for professional use — such as Seagate Expansion Desktop drives. At a price of less than $400, you can see what incredible value a high-capacity external HDD be can be. In most cases, this will be sufficient for home use. Prices per GB of around 2 cents are not unusual here — for example, the Seagate Expansion 8TB desktop hard drive for $150. An external drive with a 2.5-inch magnetic hard drive usually has a maximum capacity of 5TB. You can get a 4TB drive for less than $110 — for example from Toshiba’s Canvio Basic series. This results in extremely favorable prices of around 3 cents per GB. Further reading: How to turn any SSD into a DIY external drive Both external HDD variants are perfect if you want to create regular backups where reliability is more important than the fastest mode of operation. pcworld`s favorite external hdd for backup Seagate Expansion Desktop Read our review Best Prices Today: $119.99 at Seagate | $149.99 at Amazon NAS HDDs are a special form here: They are designed for continuous operation in network storage. Thanks to customized firmware, they tolerate many simultaneous accesses from several client PCs better than desktop hard drives. They also react less sensitively to vibrations — this is important because they are often used in a raid network with several hard drives. NAS are special forms of external storage. They make data available to several clients in the network. As they need to be constantly accessible, they require HDDs that are designed for continuous operation. IDG Disadvantages: Due to their design with disks and mechanical components such as read/write heads, HDDs generally tolerate shocks and drops much worse than SSDs. As external drives, they are also relatively heavy. This is why only the 2.5-inch variants are actually suitable for carrying around. An external HDD in 3.5-inch format also requires an external power supply unit to ensure that the power supply works — this alone speaks against mobile use. Not every NAS hard drive can be used in network storage. Before you decide on a specific model, you need to check the compatibility lists of the respective NAS device manufacturer. To do this, search the website for your exact NAS product designation and also check the desired capacity. Even in this respect, not all NAS hard drives pass the compatibility tests. Read...